Technologies

7 Ways Microsoft Uses AI to Make You Actually Care About Bing

It isn’t just ChatGPT on the Bing website. Microsoft blends OpenAI’s language technology with its own Bing search engine.

Microsoft Bing faces a big problem: Google utterly eclipses search engine. But Bing has a chance to grab more attention for itself with the OpenAI‘s language technology, the artificial intelligence foundation that’s made the ChatGPT service a huge hit.

For the brainier Bing to work, though, Microsoft has to get the details right. ChatGPT can be useful, but it can be flaky, too, and nobody wants a search engine they can’t trust.

Microsoft has put a lot of thought and its own programming resources into the challenge. It’s wrestled with issues like how AI-powered Bing shows ads, reveals its data sources, and grounds the AI technology in reality so you get trustworthy results, not the digital hallucinations that can be hard to spot in machine-generated information.

I spoke to Jordi Ribas, leader of Bing search and AI, to dig more deeply into the overhauled Bing search engine. He’s a big enough fan that he used the technology to help him write his boss a memo about it. «It probably saved me two to three hours,» he said, and it improved the Spanish executive’s English, too.

When the technology expands beyond today’s very small test group, it’ll let millions of us dig for much more complicated information, like whether an Ikea loveseat will fit into your car. And we’ll all be able to see whether it truly gives Google a run for its money. But for now, are seven aspects of Bing AI that I learned.

Bing AI isn’t just a repackaged version of ChatGPT

Microsoft blends its Bing search engine with the large language model technology from OpenAI, the AI lab that built the ChatGPT tool that’s fired up excitement about AI and that Microsoft invested in. You can get ChatGPT-like results using Bing’s «chat» option — for example, «Write a short essay on the importance of Taoism.» But for other queries, Bing and OpenAI technology are blended through an orchestration system Microsoft calls Prometheus.

For instance, you can Bing, «I like the band Led Zeppelin. What other musicians should I listen to?» OpenAI first paraphrases that prompt to «bands similar to Led Zeppelin,» then repackages Bing search results in a bulleted list. Each suggestion, like Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones, comes with a two-sentence description.

Bing AI cites its sources — sometimes

When you give ChatGPT a prompt, it’ll respond with text it generates, but it won’t tell you where it got that information. The AI system is trained on vast amounts of the information on the internet, but it’s hard to draw a direct line between that training data and ChatGPT’s output.

On Bing, though, factual information is often annotated, because Bing knows the source from its indexing of the web. For example, in the Led Zeppelin prompt above, Bing includes a link at the top of its answer to a Musicaroo post, 13 Bands That Sound Like Led Zeppelin, and includes that link and others from MusicalMum and Producer Hive.

That sourcing transparency helps address a big criticism of AI, making it easier to evaluate whether the response is accurate or a mere AI hallucination. But it doesn’t always appear. In the essay on Taoism above, for example, there aren’t any sources, footnotes or links at all.

Some source links are ads that make Microsoft money

The Bing AI’s elaborate answers provide a new way for Microsoft to generate money from ads. In traditional Bing searches, the «organic» search results that Bing judges to be most relevant are separate from items placed by advertisers. But with Bing AI searches, the two types of information can be blended.

For example, in its response to the query «plan me a one-week trip to Iceland without a rental car,» AI-powered Bing suggests several destinations. In one of them, several words are underlined: «You can visit places like Vík, Skógafoss, Seljalandsfoss, and Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon by joining a multi-day tour or taking a bus.» Hovering over that link shows three sources for that information and an ad from a tour company. The advertisement is the top item of the three and is labeled «ad.»

«When you look at those citations, sometimes they are ads,» Ribas said. «When it’s more of a purchasing intent query, you hover over it and you’ll see the list of the references and sometimes it’s an ad. Then sometimes in the conversation itself, you’re going to see product ads, like if you do a hotel query.»

Ad revenue is a big deal, since it takes weeks of work on an enormous cluster of computers for OpenAI to build a single update to its language model, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman estimates it costs a few cents to process each ChatGPT prompt. Bing, even though it’s a distant second to Google in the search engine market, still handles millions of queries a day.

Google plans to open access to its Bard AI chatbot soon, but it won’t be including ads to begin with.

OpenAI-boosted results are more relevant than plain old Bing

The fundamental measure of a search engine’s usefulness is whether its results are relevant, and the OpenAI technology brings a huge boost in the measurement that Microsoft uses to score its search engine results’ relevance.

«My team, working super, super hard in a given year, might move that metric by one point,» Ribas said, but OpenAI’s technology boosted it three points in one fell swoop. «It’s just never happened before in the history of Bing,» Ribas said.

That relevance boost is just for ordinary search results, Ribas added. OpenAI’s technology can further improve Bing with its chat interface that offers more elaborate answers and a follow-up exchange.

OpenAI makes Bing better with languages besides English

One particular area where Bing has been weak is searches that aren’t in English, and Ribas said OpenAI helps there. A lot of Bing’s three-point gain in relevance scoring «came from international markets,» Ribas said.

OpenAI’s large language model, or LLM, is trained with text from 100 languages. «Catalan is my first language. I can have a dialogue in Catalan. It works really, really well,» Ribas said

Bing brings OpenAI’s results up to date

Large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, the foundation for ChatGPT, are slow to build and improve, which means they don’t move at the speed of the web or of conventional search engines. GPT-3.5, for example, was trained in 2021, so it doesn’t have any idea about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the effects of recent inflation on consumers, or Xi Jinping securing his third term as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

Bing often does know this more recent information, though. «When you bring in the Bing results, then you will get fresh results on that complete answer,» Ribas said.

Bing ‘grounds’ OpenAI’s flights of fancy

Microsoft uses its Bing data to try to avoid situations where OpenAI’s more creative technology could lead people astray. The more factual a query and answer are, the more Bing’s technology is used in the answer, Ribas said. This «grounding» significantly reduces AI’s problems with making stuff up: «It will reduce hallucination, which is … an ongoing battle,» Ribas said.

But Microsoft doesn’t want its grounding system to squash all the magic out of the AI. There’s a reason ChatGPT has been so captivating. The Prometheus system decides on the priorities for each query.

«We had to find the sweet spot between over-grounding the model and keeping it interesting,» Ribas said. «We have a measurement of the interestingness of the results, and we have a measurement for the groundedness of the results. The more the query is looking for something very factual, the more we weight the grounded. The more the query is supposed to be creative, the less we weight the grounded. I kept telling my team, I want my cake and eat it too.»

Technologies

Apple Reportedly Eyes ‘iPhone Ultra’ Name for Folding Phone Expected This Year

It’s another week and another bunch of rumors about the company’s first foldable phone.

It’s a new week and a new set of rumors for Apple’s first foldable phone. If Tuesday’s reports are true, the device will be called the Ultra, have a bookish shape and launch in September.

The main report comes from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said the foldable is on track for a September launch, despite Nikkei Asia reporting that the phone might not launch until 2027 due to issues that cropped up during the engineering test phase.

Citing unnamed sources, Gurman said Apple will introduce the foldable phone in September alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. Those phones would likely go on sale about a week after being unveiled.

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s important to note that while rumors abound, Apple has confirmed none of them — not even the existence of a foldable iPhone.

Still, the earlier Nikkei Asia report was jarring enough to send Apple’s stock down 5.1% before it rebounded later, Gurman noted. The Nikkei Asia story said unexpected issues had arisen during engineering testing and that more time was needed to make «necessary adjustments.» Under a worst-case scenario, the first shipment of the foldables would not occur until 2027, the report said.

Looks like a book

Meanwhile, consumer tech reviewer Sonny Dickson posted images on X showing dummy models indicating how big the iPhone Fold, iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max might be. In the image, the foldable has an almost square shape when fully opened.

Dummy images are useful for phone accessory manufacturers — such as case-makers — so they can get a head start on mass production before the devices are launched. When phones are released, consumers are quick to order cases and other accessories, so the sizes need to be known. It is unclear whether the dummy models shown are actual mockups from Apple.

People who commented on X didn’t seem to love the dummy images, particularly because the models shown appear to lack MagSafe, Apple’s magnetic system on the back of the phone that lets chargers and other accessories snap on.

Stefan Moser wrote, «If the Fold is missing MagSafe, this will be a big NO for me.»

There were other criticisms, too.

An X user going by DasnkiCS posted that the phone looks «too wide, can’t palm that easily in normal phone use.»

And another X user, Brosnan Hoban, wrote, «Fold looks like a credit card from 2050.»

What’s in a name?

Tuesday’s other big rumor concerned the foldable’s name.

A leaker, Digital Chat Station, posted on the Chinese social site Weibo that the foldable iPhone could be called the iPhone Ultra. The post also said Chinese competitors may use the Ultra name for their own foldables to compete directly with Apple on design, specs, and price.

The predominant rumored name has been the iPhone Fold, but others have included Flip, Duo and iFold.

In March, Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter that Apple was considering a full line of Ultra products, possibly including a foldable phone, an M6 MacBook Pro with OLED, a foldable iPad and high-end Macs. Gurman also said Apple might introduce AirPods with «computer-vision cameras» to send visual data to Siri for its AI assistant feature.

We’ve seen a steady stream of tidbits about the foldable recently. There could be a large inner screen for multitasking, and people could open apps side by side. There might also be two rear cameras, a front-facing camera and a Touch ID side button.

Whatever Apple finally comes up with, it will be playing catch-up. Other major phone-makers already have foldable phones on the market, including the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the OnePlus Open, the Huawei Mate XT, the Honor Magic V5 and the Motorola Razr Ultra.

Technologies

Artemis II Astronauts Name Moon Crater After Commander Reid Wiseman’s Late Wife

The emotional moment was streamed by NASA moments after the crew made history.

On Monday, after the crew aboard Artemis II made a historic feat by breaking Apollo 13’s distance record, they made the moment even more special by proposing to name one of the craters on the moon «Carroll,» in memory of Commander Reid Wiseman’s late wife.

While contacting Mission Control, Mission Specialist and astronaut Jeremy Hansen stated that the «close-knit astronaut family» previously lost a loved one who was «the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie.»

«It’s a bright spot on the moon,» Hansen said while describing the crater during the emotional call. «And we would like to call it Carroll.»

After the request, you can see Wiseman embrace Hansen before the rest of the crew joins in for a group hug.

Carroll Wiseman died in 2020 at 46 years old from cancer. Wiseman’s NASA bio page states that Carroll «dedicated her life to helping others as a newborn intensive care unit Registered Nurse.»

Before the Artemis II mission, Wiseman posted a selfie with his two daughters on X with a caption that reads in part, «I love these two ladies, and I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.»

Follow CNET’s coverage of the 10-day Artemis II mission as the Orion makes its way back to Earth.

Technologies

Artemis II Astronauts Are Using iPhones to Capture Stunning Space Images

After smartphones were cleared by NASA for space missions, the crew members of the Integrity spacecraft are beaming back lots of iPhone photos.

The four astronauts aboard the Integrity spacecraft now headed home from their historic arc around the moon really are like the rest of us: Sometimes they reach for their smartphones to snap photos.

For the Artemis II mission, iPhone 17 Pro Max phones have been used to capture photos inside the capsule of the astronauts pondering the views of Earth and working on mission objectives. (Technically, NASA refers to them as PCDs – personal computing devices.)

Smartphones were cleared for use in space for the first time in February. In a post on X, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote, «We are giving our crews the tools to capture special moments for their families and share inspiring images and video with the world.»

Early in the mission, Commander Reid Wiseman snapped a pair of photos looking out the window with Earth behind him. Mission specialist Christina Koch and her dynamic curls in zero-gravity also captured a pensive view looking out over the planet. All three were made using the front camera — because wouldn’t you want to grab a selfie if you were in space?

The iPhone 17 Pro’s rear cameras are pulling their own weight during the mission, too. During the live broadcast as the crew approached the moon, Wiseman took a photo of the moon’s surface using the iPhone’s telephoto camera at 8x zoom. He turned the screen toward one of the video cameras mounted inside the spacecraft, creating an image of the moon’s surface alone against the darkness of the unlit cabin, with the iPhone’s signature rounded edges and Dynamic Island cutout at the top.

The main photo workhorses on this trip are a Nikon D5 DSLR and a Nikon Z9. The D5 is a model that has been used on several space excursions, and the Z9 is onboard as an experimental camera.

For NASA missions, every piece of equipment must be tested and certified, which is why the previously-approved D5 has a secure spot. Cameras must be resistent to space environmental factors like radiation, and safe if they’re floating around the capsule. However, the iPhones in space now are off-the-shelf models, according to a report by Jackie Watties of CNN.

The moon flyby was especially photo-intensive, with astronauts switching places several times so that two were always at windows with cameras and relating what they could see with their eyes. This photo of mission specialist and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen taking images using one of the Nikon cameras shows how some windows have camera shrouds attached. The shroud ensures that light from the interior isn’t reflected in the glass.

In a particularly relatable photo, Hansen is also using the front-facing camera of a white iPhone 17 Pro — as a portable mirror while he shaves. As the (modified) saying goes, the best selfie screen is the one you have with you.

The iPhone 17 Pro isn’t the first Apple product to go into space. Crew members have taken iPods, iPads and AirPods on missions since the Space Shuttle era. The Mac Portable even went up on a shuttle (and revealed that its trackball in zero-G isn’t the best option).

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.